Oblivion
by JJPalmer
Summary: Laura is dying, she knows it. Bill knows it. But she will fight. [Laura Roslin/Bill Adama]


She was dying. She knew it, she could feel it. She could feel the cancer growing into her, she could feel it spreading out, she could feel it slowly eating her.

And it was painful, too painful. The sleepless nights, the respiratory failure, the trembling so strong she couldn't get out of sickbay anymore…  
And the drugs didn't help, they stole that bit of lucidity she needed to fight against the disease. She almost didn't have the strenght to stay awake for more than twenty minutes, she had problems speaking properly and her eyesight had began to fail.

She lived absorbed in the oblivion, almost like floating in an endless cloud. Sometimes she managed to escape, but then she was sucked again in… and she wasn't strong enough to resist it.

"Laura…"

When that deep voice called her, she almost felt a gust of wind on her face. In her mind she saw herself swimming in the cloud to reach that distant voice. She was swimming and swimming and swimming…

"Laura, can you hear me?"

Then she started hearing sounds and voices more distinctly. She heard the light buzz uttered from the heart rate monitor she was attached to, she heard someone talking. Her mind was still obscured, but she could figure out whose those voices were: the hoarse voice of doc Cottle and the other one… it was Bill's.

"Mmh…" she moaned, suddenly feeling Bill's grip on her cold hand.

"Hey Laura, I'm here, get up…"

While swimming, she saw a small hole to slip in above her head. She caught a glimpse of the sky and started to swim towards it. She dived into the blue, into the air, to reach Bill, to reach that life that was slowly slipping through her fingers.

She opened her eyes abruptly, gasping to get her breath back, almost like she had just been swimming in apnea.  
She felt Bill's rough hand placed over hers.  
She tried to focus on the images. She winked her eyes, while the Admiral took her glasses from the bedside table and put them on her nose gently.

She smiled weakly, while she finally managed to see her Bill sitting near the bed.

"It's good… to see you…" she murmured, trying to squeeze his hand.

Bill's pained face smiled down at her. She stared at him, wondering when he had become that old.

She then glanced at the doctor, who was standing behind the Admiral. Cottle nodded ruefully, bowing his head, and went away, closing the curtain's flaps, that gave the President a bit of privacy.

"Same here Laura… I missed you." he answered, gazing on her.

Looking up at him, she could feel all the concern and the pain he was feeling seeing her like that, cuddled up under the sheets, dying and frail, like a helpless animal.  
She opened her mouth to comfort him, but she closed it back immediately with a sigh, not kwowing what to say.

"Do you want me to read you something?"

He motioned to the desk beside him, where a pile of books and journals were spread. He probably had been staying in her room for the past few days, she could see his belongings around her. His jacket hanging from the coat hanger in a corner of the room, his reading glasses on her bed side table, a bottle of ambrosia in the cabinet.

She was tempted to accept, but if Bill had started reading with that warm and deep voice, she would have fallen asleep again, rocked by its rhythm.  
And she didn't want to sleep.  
Not now. Not when Bill was with her.

She shook her head, feeling the scarf she was wearing rubbing her skin.

"I want…" she swallowed, her mouth dry "I want you, here…"

She released his hand and patted softly on the bed, inviting him to join her.

He got up, with that sad smile on his lips. He put down the book he was holding, "Searider Falcon", and approached the bed.

"I'm afraid there's not enough room for me." he said, scratching his head.

Laura tried to shift, making an effort to raise herself, but fell back onto the pillow, groaning and trembling. She blinked her eyes several times and when she focused on him again, she saw all the pain in Bill's eyes, so sincere and unable to lie. And she was sure he was suffering almost like her.

Then she saw him bending down onto her, she saw him passing an arm behind her back and the other one under her skinny legs, scooping her up, apparently without any labour. She pulled herself closer to his chest, her cheek pressed against his uniform, while Bill moved her gently, paying attention to the Ivs that connected her to the monitors.  
When she was laying on her back once again, there was enough room for both.

She smiled when Bill lay down next to her and turned over, leaning on his elbow to look at her. Their faces were so close they could almost touch.

Bill felt like a pang in his heart, as Laura curled up against him, burying her face in his chest, inhaling his familiar scent. He tried hard to hold back the tears, he couldn't cry, he had to be strong for her too, now that she was awake.  
He wrapped her waist with his free arm… almost like trying to protect her from the external world… even though she was being killed by something hidden safely inside her, in her chest.

"Are you nervous?"

Her voice brought him back to reality.

"Mmh?"

"Your heart…" she whispered "is beating so fast…"

He felt Laura shudder in his tight embrace, while he was rubbing her back.

"It's all your fault, it's your closeness that does that to me." he smirked, trying to sound convincing.

Laura giggled a little, raising her face to find his dark blue eyes staring at her.  
Bill smiled, focusing only on her green eyes, grew dim by the medicines and the suffering, but still lively and sparkling. His eyes softened as he slided towards her.  
Their noses were brushing, when he captured her lips in a kiss. He leaned against her, feeling her trembling and moaning against him.

He couldn't tell how badly he wanted her to feel better. He would have taken her place, he would have played the patient's role, so that she could end her sufferings… She was dying, he knew it and he couldn't do anything to prevent that. He could only spend every minute of the day with her, talking to her when she was awake, holding her hand when she was crying out for anesthetics, reading documents and signing paperworks when she was sleeping.

Slowly, almost like asking for her permission, Bill parted her lips to find her tongue. She responded to the kiss, trying to control her trembling, vainly.  
When they parted, searching for air, Laura lay down on the bed again, with her head on the pillow.  
But Bill didn't miss the tears that had formed in Laura's eyes when she turned her head abruptly, to avoid his eyes, stifling a groan.

"Laura don't cry, please…" he whispered, awfully grieved, while caressing her cheek, hollow and pale, cold under his gentle touch.

The brightness of her eyes was even more accentuated by her dark circles, when she looked back at him. Her face was a mix of dread and grief. She struggled to remove her glasses, discarding them on her chest.

"Bill…" she murmured, trying to control herself "Bill, I'm sorry… for this situation… I wish… I wish I met you sooner…"

Her voice cracked.

He repressed again the urge to cry, while caressing her face and wiping her tears away.

"I know, me too" he murmured, his hand resting on her cheek. Then he smiled.

"We would have met in Caprica, maybe in our favourite bookstore. We would have built that cabin by the lake and we would have gotten married right away…"

She smiled trough the tears. "Any kids?" she whispered, beginning to close her eyes.

"Of course! Two kids, maybe three. The girls would have been just like you, the boy grumpy like his old man…"

She nodded, curling up against him.

"I like… that"

She felt the necessity to sleep, the sedatives were starting to kick in. But she was afraid of going tonsleep, she feared the fact that she wouldn't be able to see her Bill again, that she wouldn't wake up again.

"Bill…" she moaned, with her eyes closed.

"Tell me" he answered, his hand resting on her skinny cheekbone, still wet.

"Stay with me until… until I don't fall asleep…please"

"Sure. I'll be right here." he replied, placing a sweet kiss on her forehead.

She smiled, feeling the heat coming from the body of the man next to her.  
But she still had something to say, before slip back into the oblivion.

"Admiral…" she breathed

"Yes, Madame President?"

"I… I love you…"

He felt his heart ache.  
The unbelievable amount of love he held in his heart for her had been there ever since they'd first met at that meeting on the Galactica, even if he never admitted it, neither to her nor himself. It wasn't until they became close friends that she'd managed to unearth his deeply buried feeling for her, with her beauty, her kindness, her strenght and determination… and her smile, her beautiful smile.

"I love you too Laura, more than anything."

She felt the strenght abandoning her, she was being pulled back inside that endless cloud. She didn't struggle to resist, she wanted to save that bit of strenght she had for the future, for the moment they found a viable planet.  
She wanted to be there for Bill, to prepare him to a future without her.

"Laura, rest now… I'll be there for you."

She nodded in agreement, while falling asleep.

She would continue to fight.

To fight for herself.

But especially for him.

She fell asleep, while a tear furrowed the cheek of the Admiral of the Colonial Fleet.

_Notes:_

_I'm not english so I'm sorry for any mistake! This is my first attempt to publish something, so let me know what you think!_

_Hugs,_  
_J.J._


End file.
